Automatic Litterbox Central

I've had my 'bot for about 13 months now and am still quite happy with it. It's always worked fine, and any problems I've had have been quite minor and usually much more the fault of my cats than of the 'bot.

However, it has started to develop a problem. The plastic sifting screen seems to be curling up away from where it is supposed to touch the inside of the globe. This leaves a small gap of an inch or so between the end of the screen and the inside wall of the globe, so when the globe rotates, both feces and urine clumps get past the screen by sneaking underneath it. They make it into that mysterious hidden chamber where only clean litter should go, and then when it rotates back, the clumps and poops end up back in the litter, not in the drawer.

I read somewhere in this forum that the screen can only be replaced at the factory. Is there anyway that I can get the screen to flatten out again, so it keeps tight contact with the wall of the globe, thus eliminating the troublesome gap? Thanks.

-Rick

I would call Automated Pet Care and see what they recommend. You might be able to heat it and push it down, sort-of making it concave or weight it down for a day or so to see if that helps.

I had this problem with the older metal screen. Although APC told me they would fix it for free, I just carefully bent the screen down and that fixed the problem. This was more of a problem with the metal screens because they weren't as resilient as the plastic screens and tended to stay open after the litter flowed back under it. It was also easy to accidentally bend them when cleaning the globe.

I guess with the plastic screen you would have to heat up to mould it back.

I have a LR1 and my screen is plastic, I think. I had the same problem a few months back, and with a little bit of curling the other direction (nothing extensive, just a quick flex with your hands... not pretty though), it straightened out a bit. I had to watch it for a couple weeks, make sure that it was flushed against the wall and fixing it when it wasn't... there's a couple little grooves that parts of the screen would sort of rest into and that insured it stayed. It would fall out of the grooves occasionally, if I had a lot of litter in there, so part of the solution was to use a little less litter because the weight of it would push it out.

FYI, I contacted the LR folks, and apparently all I had to do was bend the screen back into position, which worked! It turns out that the screen is very 'bendable', almost as if made of wire rather than plastic. I hadn't even bothered trying so simple a fix, assuming the plastic screen would just snap back when I let go, as plastic tends to do. Once again, I am impressed by the quality of this product!

-Rick

reb_el wrote:FYI, I contacted the LR folks, and apparently all I had to do was bend the screen back into position, which worked!

A couple of years ago they told me not to do that! I did it anyway and it worked.

Interesting that it's still wire (apparently covered in plastic). It used to be galvanized steel which started to rust after a few years because the abrasive cat litter would grind off all the zinc.